"Keep your hands off of me!" A female's voice echoed through the trees. "Shut up!" SLAP! In a dark place in a dark forest, one of Odin's handmaidens was being held by a couple of mean looking trolls. They pinched her and growled at her while she lay on the ground, cunningly tied. "Just wait until my master comes to my aid!", she cried, "I am Thyra the Valkyrie and I have duties to attend*; he will surely find out when I'm missing and have you filthy trolls for breakfast!" The trolls uttered some vicious fits of laughter as they saw her hands trying to get loose. No matter what's been said of trolls - they sure knew how to tie knots, so Thyra found out at her own cost. "You will surely regain your freedom," laughed the biggest and ugliest of the trolls, "albeit temporarily! Har har!"

In the mean time, somewhere else in the dense forest undergrowth, an Elf lay on the ground, listening. He was Questron son of Glorfindel, hiding for a mean looking bunch of trolls that were looking for trouble. As far as he was concerned, they could get trouble if they wanted - they only had him outnumbered so he lay flat on his face, even afraid to breathe. For the time being, this seemed the smartest solution. Unfortunately, Questron had an illness that only very few elves ever had. It was called....Aaatchie!!....hayfever. The trolls heard a sudden noise and saw the elf lying in his shelter. "Food!" some of them yelled, and drew their knives. They were just about to utilize their sharp blades at the brave but outnumbered elf when a stout and low voice shouted: "Halt, you fools! Are your brains filled by dwarfs' guts? You know what we have to do when we find any fair people!" When speaking the last two words, he made a face as if he was chewing on something he disliked. He spitted in the elf's face to get rid of it.

Merlin looked up from his thoughts as he imagined to hear a distant cry in the forest. There it was again: A long, wailing cry that went right through his bones. "The Troll King is on the hunt for Sauromancer the reptile eater," he knew, "my assistance is needed!" He walked down the hill, leaning on his stick. Suddenly, he vanished into thin air.

Thor's axe had already cleaved several trolls' skulls, and blood was dripping from it. There must have been a dozen corpses at his feet, and the trolls just kept coming. A giant troll with a crown tilted on his filthy head appeared on a nearby hill and screamed: "We want him alive! I'll personally dine on whoever dares to kill that warrior!" Thor felt himself strengthened when he heard that, and his mighty muscles made the axe sway around once more, beheading several trolls. Blood sprayed around, and eyes grew dim. A heavy piece of wood was lifted above Thor's head - obviously manned by a troll that was the smartest at home. THUD! All Thor further saw that day was a black darkness, filled with tiny stars as he kneeled down and fell forward like a block of concrete.

It was already getting dark when Merlin discovered a trolls' camp on the mountainside. There were several guards, and inside the tents he could here aggravated cries. He tried to get a little bit closer and caught something of the conversation that was going on between what turned out to be two highly ranked trolls inside the tent. "Finally we've got what Lurkhead, our dear monarch, wants!" said one of them. "Yeah, sure, he has to feed the dragon in the maze or otherwise the beast will come up and look for food - right at Sauromancer's palace!" answered the other one, "and we're the ones suffering: That damn warrior killed about two dozen of us, and that damn valkyrie castrated old Grindleguts!" "All we now need," continued the first troll, "is...." "..A WIZARD perhaps?" Merlin looked behind him and saw a troll standing behind him. Damn! Why had he forgotten to take his invisibility spell with him?! The troll took Merlin's magic staff and broke it in two. It then laughed with self-satisfaction. The other two trolls came out of their tent. "Grindleguts!" one of them pronounced, "what have you there? A wizard?!" - "Yep," Grindleguts proudly said, "and I was the one who captured him. All on my own!" Merlin kept quiet and hid his inflatable stick in one of his boots in the commotion. Shortly after, he was led to a tent where he met Thyra, Questron and Thor.

After the trolls had left them alone. Only a couple of guards were outside that now and then peered in with water dripping from the corners of their mouths - especially when looking at Thyra. "What are they going to do with us, Merlin?" Thor asked, while gently stroking a bump of formidable dimensions, partly hidden under his long brown hair. Merlin sat silent for a while. "As far as I know, they are going to feed us to the dragon in the evil maze near to Isnagoth." "Isnagoth!" cried Questron, "the place where my forefathers died in the battle against he whose name we shan't mention?" The wizard did not say a word, and merely nodded. Some tears appeared in Thyra's eyes: "When will that be, Merlin?" "We will know more in the morning. Sleep now, you'll need all the strength you can get before the moon rises again!" Merlin cast a spell and they all fell in a deep and untroubled sleep.

The sun had barely started shining when they were awoken by the hoarse voices of trolls. "Arise! Arise, fair people!" (SPIT) They were on a wagon that was pulled by twelve ferocious Wargs**, obviously put there during their deep sleep, on their way to the city of Isnagoth. Already, the dark silhouettes of the towers of the doomed city loomed in the hazy distance. The procession left the road and headed for a seemingly lost amphitheatre, partly hidden behind large oak trees. The town was not their destination - it was the maze they were heading for. When they entered the amphitheatre, they saw that it was filled with trolls - the troll king was also present, sitting next to a man clad in red and black: Sauromancer the reptile eater. They all started to make humming noises as they recognized the four figures on the wagon.

In the middle of the amphitheatre, a large hole was made. A hole that was large enough for the dragon to get out - and thus more than large enough for four of these 'fair people' to be dropped in. The whole theatre fell silent when Sauromancer arose. "Citizens of Isnagoth! Behold the feeding of he who has to be fed! Let the prisoners step forward!" Sauromancer stepped forward and climbed down the tribune. He passed the prisoners and they suddenly felt cold and dead. He stood still at the edge of the giant hole in the ground. He took a cross from his robe and held it in the air, upside down. "Astorath! Astorath!" he yelled, "ye habe ne vara ili gom sato!" A growling sound arose from the depths of the maze, and shivers ran down the spines of the prisoners (as well as those of some younger trolls). Sauromancer nodded to the guards to let the prisoners down the steep stairs. Thor, Thyra, Questron and Merlin were forced to climb down the steps - to face a maze in which death would almost certainly loom. Grindleguts kept well away of Thyra, and thought he saw her eyeing some other trolls when she disappeared down the stairs as the last one, into the dragon's maze.

* = Valkyries are usually on duty at the battlefield or in Walhalla, being servants of Odin.** = According to research by Tolkien, Wargs (evil wolves) seldom work together with trolls, but rather like to be in the vicinity of orcs. These Wargs are an exception to that rule.

*****

After having had to wait quite a long time (an educated guess would bring it to a little over half a year), U.S. Gold finally seemed to find the time fit to publish the sequel to the arcade conversion "Gauntlet": "Gauntlet II". Also supplied on two disks, "Gauntlet II" features other (more intricate and difficult) levels as well as enhanced gameplay.

The player already starts to be amazed right from the beginning of the game: A sideview of the arcade hall "Gauntlet II" machine appears on the screen, that after some loading turns very realistically towards to spectator and ultimately displays the "Gauntlet II" arcade screen with brilliant graphics, some color rasters on the screen and the digitized version of the original arcade hall music. Probably the best and most advanced intro sequence ever produced on the Atari ST - takes a lot of memory though, and half meg owners will find that some loading is needed between the graphics sequence and the starting of the music.

After the intro, loading proceeds as usual, until at a certain time you are requested to insert the second disk in drive A. After having done that, the loading process commences. But alas! After some more seconds, the disk drive starts making the weirdest sounds imaginable, and after having heard that for too long a time, I pushed the little grey button on the back of my system. A second booting process reveals the same problem, until I decide to load the game on another disk drive (at a friend's). Loading now proceeds without these hazardous sounds, and playing can be started as usual ("Gauntlet II" does NOT work on Cumana disk drives, was the conclusion of the above. So beware if you happen to have one of those devices!).

"Gauntlet II" is principally the same as its predecessor, but features (as I already mentioned) different levels, almost perfectly smooth scrolling and a lot more digitized sound effects and speech. "Gauntlet II" can also be played with four players, but instead of two joysticks and two keyboard players, four joysticks are now supported (via a special interface that can be bought at £5,99 from U.S. Gold). The graphics are still excellent, and together with the mentioned new features this makes it much better value for money than the original "Gauntlet". "Gauntlet II", proves (together with products like "Bubble Bobble", "Bionic Commando" and "Sidewinder") that converting arcade games to our humble ST can be quite a success and can result in some pretty excellent games!